


On a Morning, Bright and Merry

by dizzy_fire



Category: 14th Century CE RPF
Genre: Children, Gen, Yuletide Treat, contains some fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-24
Updated: 2013-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-05 23:58:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1100065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzy_fire/pseuds/dizzy_fire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a crumbling Pagan empire, two little boys meet each other for the first time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On a Morning, Bright and Merry

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Filigranka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Filigranka/gifts).



> I loved all your prompts and I wish I had the time to write, like, ALL THE STORIES for you. But since I don't, I hope you enjoy this little piece of childhood fluff. Happy Yuletide! :)

The little boy squirmed in the saddle and watched his own breath rise in the cold air of the early morning. It had been dark still when they set out from Vilnius. He had slept at first, wrapped in the heavy folds of his uncle's travelling cloak, dipping in and out of a light and easily-broken sleep, until he could hardly remember who he was, never mind the where and why.

The castle of Trakai rose over them with the dawn. Shrouded in mist arising from the lake, the old fortress was distant and strange, almost as if the mist had brought it over from the dark realms beyond. The torches by the gate were like lanterns of the dead. Jogaila, sixth son of Grand Duke Algirdas of Lithuania, drew closer to his uncle's broad, warm chest, and tried to pretend he wasn't scared at all.

Soldiers called out to them, hailing their lord, and the ducal party answered. The castle must be real enough, then, the child decided with a sense of relief. Still, as they passed the gate, it seemed to loom over them like a dark, hungry mouth, and the boy shivered. His hand strayed to his chest to draw a sign of the cross – three fingers together, right to left, as taught to him by his Ruthenian mother. He felt his uncle tense, but the duke remained silent.

Nobody else seemed to be. Their arrival was greeted by such commotion, so much hustle and bustle, that Jogaila, raised mostly in the quiet chambers of his mother, now stood amazed and – again – more than a little fearful. His uncle passed him on to another man, who took him to a servant, who led him to a different servant, who took his cloak and gave him food, and then led him to see someone else again. Shuffled along like a parcel, the boy eventually found himself back in the main hall.

He faced his uncle, Duke Kęstutis, seated in a high chair and suddenly far more intimidating than he had been during their journey together from Vilnius. Aunt Birutė sat on his right; Jogaila instinctively lowered his gaze to the floor when she looked at him. It was said – or whispered by some of his mother's servants, at least, and he was a sharp-eared little boy – that Birutė was a witch, or at the very least a priestess of the Lithuanian gods. The way the servants spoke of it, there didn't seem to be much difference between the two, and Jogaila was determined to avoid his aunt's gaze, in case she decided to put a spell on him if he looked. (It was true enough that she had never done so previously, but it was better to be safe than sorry; and besides, the last time they met was before he had learnt about her possibly being a witch. For all he knew, this could make all the difference.)

Kęstutis' sons and daughters – Jogaila's cousins – were also present. He recognized the older ones from a visit they had paid to his father's court for the last Winter Festival. They did not seem to be that interested in him now, but at least they waited in relative order; the younger children pushed and jostled each other, sitting down, standing up, or – in the case of a boy around Jogaila's age – angrily trying to persuade a younger sibling to stop following him around. They were not interested in the newcomer, either – that is, not until Uncle Kęstutis started speaking.

“Welcome to Trakai, nephew. As you know, it is my brother's wish that you spend your next year here, learning about our way of life. Trakai defends our country; we stand between Lithuania and the butchers of the Order. Grand Duke Algirdas wishes you to know what this means.” He paused for a moment, as if waiting for a reply. Receiving none, he continued, “Since I am to teach you, I will begin at once. At the gates of this castle, I saw you make the sign of our enemies.”

Feeling all eyes on himself, the child stammered in protest, which Kęstutis interrupted with a wave of his hand – not angry, but not forgiving, either. “Did your mother teach you to make this sign?”

“Yes... to keep me safe...”

“And do you know who else carries it? Who invades our lands, takes our people, kills our priests - all in the name of the sign you made?”

“But... it was mama's sign – mama is not German,” Jogaila managed to whisper. The room was quiet now – so quiet that Kęstutis heard the whispered plea. He rose from the chair and approached his nephew, kneeling down so that their eyes were level.

“Indeed, your mother is Ruthenian. Her people do not come to us as  _Crusaders_ ,” he spat the word out as if it tasted rotten, “and yet they are no less dangerous in their own way. Ruthenia is vast, while we are few. Through the strength of our arms we have taken much of their lands. My brother allows them to practise their faith and keep their customs. I doubt they would extend the same favour to us if the gods smiled on them for once! They call us heathens, as the German Order calls us heathens. The Order comes to us with steel and flame, while the Ruthenians are content to send us their princesses to marry and their saints to gawk at, but make no mistake – they want us to be lost no less than the Order does. And lost we will be, if either of them have their way, whether it comes from the swords of the Order, or from our princelings learning to make the Ruthenian sign of the cross as if it were theirs to make. We are Lithuanian! We have our gods, and need no other. Do you understand?”

Jogaila struggled to blink away the tears. His mother was a Ruthenian princess, and she numbered three known saints among her ancestors. He had never before thought it might be a bad thing.

“Do you understand, boy?”

He managed to nod. Kęstutis held his eye for a while. Finally he gave a curt nod himself, and rose. “Good. Now you will be whipped, to make sure you mind the lesson well.”

Jogaila looked at his uncle in open-mouthed astonishment. He had never been seriously punished before, much less for an offence he had not even intended to commit. He did not dare protest, in case it made his uncle – or worse, his aunt – even more angry. Crying was beginning to look like the best option, but before he could get started in earnest, somebody shoved him from behind. Jogaila fell onto his knees, so surprised that he forgot about the tears.

“Here, Father,” said a boy behind him. “He'll remember now and you don't need to whip him. May we go and see the castle?”

***

“Father did promise I could show you around,” explained his cousin once they had been permitted to leave the main hall and go tearing down the corridors of the castle. To Jogaila's relief, Kęstutis had been somewhat amused at the interruption, and it looked like whipping was off the cards for the moment, although the boy still sniffled every now and then, just in case.

His cousin's name was Vytautas; he was about Jogaila's age, and – as he explained - thoroughly sick of having his younger brother trailing after him, which partially explained the need for haste. “He _always_ follows me. I hate it. He's always crying, too. Do you like the castle?”

They stopped to catch their breaths. Jogaila considered his reply carefully. He too had a baby brother, and he was rather looking forward to the day when little Skirgaila would be old enough to toddle after him. As for the castle, it did not look that much different from Vilnius at first glance, although there seemed to be fewer people about, and, perhaps, more swords.

“It's nice,” he said eventually.

“Is it better than Vilnius? I've never been to Vilnius yet. Why were you crying? Do you want to go home?”

Somewhat embarrassed, Jogaila explained that the tears had had more to do with him not wanting to be whipped, although – now that he thought about it – he did suppose he wanted to go home. Maybe. With his cousin around, Trakai was beginning to look a little less intimidating.

Vytautas laughed. “Don't worry, they won't hit you. Or they will, maybe, but not very hard. _Or_ ,” he added after a pause and a sideways glance, “they wouldn't hit _me_ hard. They all know I'll be the next duke of Trakai after Father. _You_ won't be, though, so you might be in trouble after all.”

They started walking again, in a completely different direction than before, but neither of them minded very much. They were not headed anywhere in particular; it was only that the morning was still fresh, and, by a common though unspoken agreement, it seemed a waste to spend it all in one place.

Jogaila, again, gave due consideration to all he had heard. “You've got older brothers,” he opined. “You won't be the duke.”

“Will too,” Vytautas shrugged, unconcerned in the face of arguments. “Do you want to see the stables now?”

Jogaila agreed that, yes, the stables would be particularly interesting, and they were off once again, running as fast as their legs would carry them. There were more people about by now, and the boys weaved around them at full speed, ducking in and out of shadows and dappled pools of sunlight coming in through the windows.

They did not get to see the stables that morning, or, indeed, for several mornings after that. Almost as soon as they were outside, Vytautas lost interest in the idea, and instead pulled Jogaila towards the top of the castle wall.

“You'll see the lakes from here,” he explained. “Father says you have no lakes in Vilnius. We have five here: there's Lake Galvė – that's the closest one – Lake Luka, Lake Totoriškės, and... and I forgot the rest. There are a _lot_ of lakes.”

The wall was made of bricks, warm-looking, though still chilly to the touch. The top was too high for a small boy to scale, but two small boys, working in concert and giving each other a leg up, could just about manage. They hung there like a pair of young crows, silent, alert and a little awed.

At this time of the day Lake Galvė shone. It was not the orange glow of the sunrise, for the sun was well on its way through the first part of its daily voyage. Rather, the water was silver-bright, as if pure daylight had turned into liquid to lap at the foundations of the peninsula castle.

“The lakes protect us,” Vytautas said, a little short of breath. “Father wants to build a new castle on that island over there, and then the Christians will never get to us.”

“Does Uncle fight the Order a lot?”

“Most of the time,” Vytautas shrugged,somehow keeping his hold on the wall. “I suppose I will, too, when I'm Duke of Trakai. You can be Duke of Vilnius,” he added generously, “like your father. Then I'll deal with the Order and you'll deal with the Ruthenians.”

Jogaila thought about his Ruthenian mother, and the three avowed saints in her – their – family. For some reason the thought made him sad, and he didn't want to ask what his cousin meant by “dealing with the Ruthenians”. Fortunately, thinking about his mother reminded him of another question he had been meaning to ask.

“Is your mama really a witch?”

“Yeah,” said Vytautas after a slight pause. It would take Jogaila a few weeks, but he'd eventually learn that his cousin often said “yes” in this manner when he actually meant “maybe”, “well, _I_ think so”, or (frequently), “probably not, but I like the idea”. At the moment, however, he believed Vytautas absolutely. A shiver ran down his spine, but it was not altogether unpleasant. _We are Lithuanian, and my aunt is a witch, and if we're strong enough, the Order will never get us._

Their arms were getting numb. Vytautas looked at him and grinned. “Let go on the count of three, and then I'll race you to the gate!”

To a little boy the drop from the wall seemed steep indeed, but Jogaila grinned back and nodded.

_One... Two..._

He was not afraid anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a vast country, but ethnic Lithuanians made up a relatively small part of the population. The Lithuanian dukes had conquered (and were trying to hold on to, at the time when the story takes place) large chunks of Ruthenia, or present-day Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Ruthenians tended to be Eastern Ortodox Christians, and were a little less kill-happy than the Teutonic Order when it came to dealing with their Pagan neighbours, although of course there were plenty of tensions as Lithuanian and Ruthenian dukes vied for dominance over the territory.


End file.
